The Secret Life of John C. Van Dyke: Selected Letters (Western Literature and Fiction Series)

Van Dyke, John C.; David W. Teague & Peter Wild (edited by)

ISBN 10: 0874172942 / ISBN 13: 9780874172942

Published by University of Nevada Press, Reno & Las Vegas, 1997

About this Item

Reno & Las Vegas: University of Nevada Press, 1997. New and unread in PERFECT condition. Sharp corners. Square and tight. NO owner's name or bookplate. NOT a library discard. NOT a remainder. Pages are fresh, crisp, clean and unmarked. NO underlining. NO highlighting. NO margin notes. Edited with an introduction by David W. Teague & Peter Wild. Selected bibliography. Index. Bound in the original gilt-stamped black boards. From the publisher: "In this collection of letters, the authors critically examine the ecological principles and reality of the desert saint Van Dyke. The letters depict a privileged, patrician, and pampered member of the upper class, who saw most of the deserts from plush railroad cars and hotel rooms.". First Printing of the First Edition. Hardcover. NEW condition/No dust jacket, as issued. Illus. by NOT a library discard. 8vo. x, 166pp. Great Packaging, Fast Shipping.

Seller Inventory # 031569

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Secret Life of John C. Van Dyke: Selected Letters (Western Literature and Fiction Series)
• Publisher: University of Nevada Press, Reno & Las Vegas
• Publication Date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0874172942
• ISBN 13: 9780874172942
• Binding: Hardcover
• Illustrator: NOT a library discard
• Edition: First Printing of the First Edition.
• Condition: NEW condition
• Dust Jacket Condition: No dust jacket, as issued
• Seller catalogs:
  • Nevada history
  • Nature / Natural History / Ecology / Gardening

About this title

Synopsis

The author of The Desert, the book that made the American landscape accessible to the mainstream mind, was much less like his fellow environmental prophets John Muir and Henry David Thoreau than he would have had us believe. Van Dyke claimed to have wandered ""alone on horseback for thousands of miles through the American Southwest and northern Mexico,"" as readers of The Desert―now in the millions since the book was published in 1901―were told. He did not. In The Secret Life of John C. Van Dyke, Teague and Wild unmask the desert saint with Van Dyke’s own recently discovered letters. These letters depict a privileged, patrician, and pampered member of the upper-class. His incriminating correspondence reveals that he saw most of the desert from plush railroad cars and grand hotel rooms. In the introduction, the editors clear up many misconceptions scholars currently hold about Van Dyke’s ecological principles, about his outdoorsmanship, and about his trip through the desert itself. As the centennial of the publication of The Desert approaches, this lively collection of letters helps set the record straight. The John C. Van Dyke unveiled in The Secret Life is a more varied character than we had supposed―still worthy of much admiration for his remarkable accomplishments, but still mysterious, and not the man we thought him to be.

About the Author

David W. Teague teaches American Literature at the University of Delaware and is the author/editor of several books.

Peter Wild is one of the foremost poets of the American West. After working as a cowboy, fighting fires for the U.S. Forest Service, and serving in the Special Troops of the U.S. Army, Peter Wild went on to write numerous articles for such publications as the New York Times, Sierra, Smithsonian, and Western American Literature. He has written over seventy books, of history, literary criticism, and biography, and of his twenty volumes of poetry, Cochise was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. He teaches creative writing at the University of Arizona and resides in Tucson.